Tripping Balls
by Anamary Armygram
Summary: (Or, Five incapacitants THRUSH considered using, and the one they went with). "A clouded glass orb shoots through the corridor, as small and fast as a candlepin bowling ball." There are all sorts of ways this could end. (Six drabbles.)


**Content note:** #5 contains some dubiously-consensual making out

 **Author notes:** Written for the fan_flashworks, to the prompt "Ball." Thanks to EveningInHornersCorners for beta'ing. (More notes at the end.)

* * *

 **1\. The Soporific**

The corridor branches T-shaped, and Napoleon does not know whether to go left or right. The dark pink damask wallpaper, the evenly spaced white doors, are disorientingly monotonous. He watches the single candle in the mirrored sconce before him; the bending flame may suggest a distant draft, an exit.

In the mirror, a clouded glass orb shoots through the corridor, as small and fast as a candlepin bowling ball. Before he can react, it rolls between his feet and cracks against the baseboard.

The flame is obscured, first by thin white vapor, then by the fat black smoke of sleep.

 **2\. The Irritant**

It rolls between his feet and cracks against the baseboard. He jumps back, but the white vapor pours into the corridor in great volume and at terrible speed and touches his left hand. It burns, and although he knows better he cannot help sucking a sharp breath through his teeth. Only a wisp goes in, but the burning pours into his mouth, his windpipe, his lungs.

Through the haze of hot agony, he guesses its identity: capsilvium, designed to induce pain without permanent damage. He makes a snap decision, turns right, and runs… suffering, but safe. This too shall pass.

 **3\. The Deliriant**

The ball cracks and white vapor rises, disturbing the candle's flame. It's a bitter smell and a taste that numbs the tongue.

The hall is all doorways, one after another after another. There is light from above, but taking a candle is what you do.

Napoleon puts his hand to the candle, tries to work it out of the socket. It is too light, it jerks his hand into the air.

His whole body tenses, like waking from a falling dream. A shout from behind. A scuffle, or running feet.

A voice, familiar but nameless. On the carpet, broken glass.

 **4\. The Disinhibitor**

Luckily, Illya and Chiara are following him. Even more luckily, they are following him distantly enough that the cloud has dissipated by the time they arrive.

"We shouldn't split up just yet," says Napoleon. "This feels like a truth serum. If I fall into their hands now…"

Illya rolls his eyes. "If you fall into their hands now, you'll respond as programmed: gibberish if it's mission-related, trivialities otherwise. I'm tempted to let them have you, if only to be spared your trivialities myself."

"You don't really mean that," says Napoleon. "You enjoy my company, trivialities or no."

It's the truth.

 **5\. The Aphrodisiac**

They have decided to split up, Illya and the girl to the right – where the bending flame suggests a distant draft – and Napoleon to the left, where Dr. Justman's lab may be. No one notices the orb until it breaks.

Faced with the spectacle of his handsome partner clinching this beautiful innocent – Illya's enfolding arm going from protective to possessive, Chiara's breathing from run-fast to lewd – Napoleon turns his gaze to the floor.

"How" – Illya's voice is muffled by Chiara's soft neck – "are you resisting it?"

Napoleon smiles ruefully at the eye-blue carpet. "Easy. I resist it all the time."

 **6\. The ? ? ?**

Dr. Justman watches the face of the U.N.C.L.E. agent in the monitor. It is a frank, expressive face – and openly confused.

The agent expects a drug effect, and if necessary he will invent one. Perhaps he will mistake his fatigue for opiated drowsiness, or interpret some minor aberration of heart rate or respiration as a harbinger of panic, or notice the garishness of the wallpaper and wonder if he is hallucinating. No matter what he settles on, he is distracted and therefore vulnerable.

The orb contains no drug; the sight of it _is_ the drug. The placebo is powerful indeed.

* * *

 **Note:** Dr. Justman's name is a tribute to Stewart Justman, a scholar of medical humanities whose work has dealt with placebo and nocebo effects.


End file.
